So We Wrote
by tore-my-yellow-dress
Summary: "The first time he kisses her, she knows, knows beyond the shadow of a doubt, that their worlds will end soon." In which Red and Lizzie's new found peace is shattered when The Adversary presents him with a harrowing ultimatum: his alive, adult daughter, or Lizzie? WIP.


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_A/N- Thanks for all the feedback I've gotten on my other stuff! This story will have three parts to it, and let me tell you, it's going to get sad and depressing reallll quick, so enjoy this fluffy first time while it lasts! A brief summary of what's to come: this story will be answering the question of, "If Red had to physically choose between saving the life of his adult daughter or saving Lizzie, as his lover, which would he choose?" As in one of his enemies forcibly makes him choose. So, yeah. Angst. Here is the first installment. Hope y'all enjoy! _

_warning: nsfw elements in this chapter_

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**_One._**

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The rain is warm when it splatters upon her cheeks.

Thick, heady drops, that soak her hair from root to tip. Thunder crackles, and she's standing in the downpour, and she knows her makeup is smearing, and she knows she'll catch a cold. Her eyes are for him.

Only him.

She'd met him out at an old oak tree, brought her scruples and her walls. He'd been waiting for her, and that's how she knows he knows what he's done, knows the baring weight of it. Lizzie looks at Raymond Reddington, standing before her with palms wide open to her reckoning, and she knows he's carried these lies, tons of ugly cement, on his shoulders since she was four years old. Lizzie looks at him and she's grateful for all the rain.

She's grateful for the lies, too.

But he's looking at her like she's wielding a knife, like she's got her gun cocked. Ready for the firing squad. Ready for death.

She wonders if every time she's left him, a part of him has died.

She wonders if every scar on his body is a funeral for the taken.

"Red," Lizzie whispers, too low. His fedora is ruined, she thinks mournfully. "You set the fire," she declares bluntly, and a part of her shrivels at the way he flinches away from the admittance. She doesn't want to hurt him, and she's not angry. It's funny, funny in the worst kind of way, because she's not furious. "And that's okay."

Red keeps staring at her, uncomprehending.

A chill meets the air, and her vision is blurry because of the way the precipitation bleeds. The ground is mud. Oh, her shoes. Her shoes. Lizzie looks down at them, squishes the heels into the dirt. He's acting like everything is ruined, like lightening should strike him. This is the lie Sam Scott died for. This is the lie, and it's the most medicinal discrepancy there ever was. It's a fallacy. It's moronic.

"Because my biological father was a very bad man, and he might have killed your family," she continues, tastes rainwater on her gums. "And you saved me."

Red says nothing, and she takes a step forward because he's the poison apple and she's Eden, and something takes over her soul, taking in his features, the darkness brewing in his eyes. Something like want, something like yearning takes over, and Lizzie takes another step forward.

"_You saved me," _she repeats to him, every ounce of meaning in those words. "And I forgive you, Red. Look at me. Look me in the eye."

He follows her order, mossy and perfect, and she looks at this man she's spent the past four years of her life discovering, the past thirty becoming inextricably bonded by the red threads of fate, and she could scream the truth to him in a heartbeat. She could scream, but when the admittance comes, it's quiet. It's only for him. It's always been only for him.

"I was right," she inclines her head, daunting and real. "You're a monster, Raymond Reddington. You've done," she catches her breath, can feel it beginning to let up, to drizzle. "You've done _terrible _things."

He looks, in a word, _gutted. _Eyes obstinate and mouth thinned. As if his whole world has just concaved, all because she's taken an axe and cut down every attempt at reconcile he's thought of. It was all a lost cause, and it hits him, and Red looks like he's going to vomit, like he wants to take a razor to his own wrists, and he heaves out one solid sob before he startles.

He jerks back when Lizzie is suddenly inches away from his face.

Her fingers on his jaw, soft, God, her fingers are soft, and he thinks she might be so close because she wants to shove a blade into his stomach, wants to physically end him. Raymond Reddington thinks, very quietly and to himself, that death by her hands would be the most symbolic way to go.

She's his reason for existence.

It only makes sense that she should be the one to snuff him out like a light, when all the power is in her matchstick fingertips.

But she doesn't end the light, and he sees something in her eyes.

He sees _hope,_ like a little bird in his chest, and he doesn't want to misconstrue this, doesn't want to think that emotion is genuine because she just said-

But then she says-

"But I love you," Lizzie murmurs, looking at his lips, and water is dripping off faces, and she's beautiful to him. With her eyes the color of a tremulous ocean, with her rosebud mouth. She's gorgeous, and his entire life he was a nomad until he found a compass, until he found his touchstone in each blackened lash upon her porcelain cheek. And she's his guide, and he knows, he knows this is the moment he's waited for in a thousand years. He's done terrible things, unspeakable things, but then she says:

"I forgive you because you're the _man _I love." Lizzie breaks off, hands shaking as they cup his face, and she needs him to say something, because he looks shocked, he looks blown away, and she needs to know, can't help herself from babbling. "Red, I've fallen in love with you, and if that means that we can't work together because- be-because you view me as a liability, because of my father, because you don't want this-

"What on Earth would make you think I wouldn't want this, Lizzie?" Red mutters, all husk. Lizzie's eyes widen, mouth parting at the tone.

One of her hands slips to his shoulder, to the clinging material of his shirt. Lizzie's cheeks grow warm. "So, you really _don't _view me as a daughter figure in any way?" she implores quietly.

Red's expression grows heavy.

Then, he takes his hands from where they are fallen at his sides- he takes his hands and he slides them up her slack clad thighs to her waist.

Lizzie just about jumps out of her skin, and his hands don't stop.

Up her slender waist, over her arms, back, back to the small of her back. Red pulls her to him, pulls her to stand between his parted legs, and she stumbles, regains her balance. Every cell in her body is a livewire, nerves prickling. It's just sprinkling, now, but the water from his lips is sliding off him and onto her own skin, and they're like islands, like oceans. Entwined, and they haven't even touched one another without clothes on yet.

Intimacy is relative.

He repositions his extremities to graze back up her torso, and her eyes drift shut, her body swaying when he tucks her hair behind her ear. His thumb is rough, calloused. Lizzie pants.

Red touches her upper lip with his pointer finger, and Lizzie's eyes snap open, driving and churning. He opens her mouth.

And then he opens his mouth.

/

The first time he kisses her, standing in the rain behind a house she has begun to call home more than any establishment she's ever taken place of, she knows they will crumble in the wind like lost statues of sacred things.

The first time he kisses her, she knows, knows beyond the shadow of a doubt, that their worlds will end soon. It's perfect.

Perfect in the way they stand in the weather like they've lived in it, in the way he touches everything and only her jaw at once. In the way he takes her weight, and his tongue tastes like addiction, makes drugs and alcohol seem like child's play. It's perfect when she steps out of her shoes because his hands go to her thighs, because he literally hoists her up, around his waist.

Lizzie squeals into his mouth, feels the friction of the bulge in his own dress pants, and thinks her height has always been a burden, and his biceps are so, so, _ah. _And it's not supposed to be this perfect.

Perfect things die very quickly. Mere mortals weren't meant to know such beautiful things. That's the reason why a God's vice usually meant taking a human's life. That's the reason the stars are kept apart, and it's all wrapped up in the way he walks with her thighs around his waist, into the house.

She makes him put her down to toe off his shoes, because the carpet is pristine, and she won't be the reason for muddy footprints. The door is barely shut before he has her pressed up against it, their damp clothing heavy and hanging, and almost painful when chaffed against certain sensitive areas, and-

And then it's the cold, the air conditioning of the huge, high ceilinged rooms. She can feel the thumpa thumpa of her heart at her carotid, knows the contrast of his huge grip against her slim frame. That makes her cover her chest, shudder. "Jesus, Red," she groans against his lips. "Why were we out in the rain so long?"

He stops to pull away, to look her dead in the eye. "Maybe I wanted the rain to wash away all the terrible things."

Lizzie's eyes become glassy, lower lip wobbles. "Red-

"Raymond," she inhales, testing the name. "Raymond, I love every part of you, even the ugly parts. I love you as you are."

She's said the phrase three or four times, then. It makes her chest feel loose to have such honesty hanging in the air. Such light.

Red tells her, softly, like the darkest kind of secret-

(And she knows it is, because real monsters, the kind with bombs and body counts, are constantly gnawing at their security structures, and they might be dead by tomorrow, and life is the most uncertain thing in the world, and she's a liability. She is his weakness. She is his heel. She is his- )

"You are everything to me, Lizzie."

(It means more than _I love you._ So much more.)

/

"Does that answer the daughter question?" he ponders as they trail down the hallway. He has her by the hand, leads her to his bedroom like some modernized Phantom of the Opera. It's a joke, but she takes it a step further.

"Honestly, _Daddy," _she snorts, and even when his shoulders rise at the use of the word, she doesn't back down._ "_I've known you had complex feelings toward me since the moment I sat down in the Post Office. It took me about five seconds to realize."

"Oh, really?" Red inquires, one eyebrow raising. They get in the door to his bedroom and he presses her against a wall, fingers going to her fly before he pauses. "Was it my elevator eyes that tipped you off? I apologize, really. Those slacks hug your thighs quite nicely, sweetheart."

He takes that moment to outline them with his hands again. Lizzie's stomach flips at the pressure, makes her want to slide one of his thighs between her legs and _buck. _But she keeps her cool.

Lizzie grins fondly. "Actually, no. It was how hard you fucked me, actually."

Red's expression slackens, the picture of disbelief. Because that is not how he remembers things. That's not-

Lizzie takes the opportunity to get his belt loosened, and after that, she closes the small gap with another kiss, this time a sucking drone on his jaw. "Mind fucking, Red. The best kind."

Red makes a noise of disbelief, fingers going to the hem of her shirt. He takes it as a challenge.

"We'll see about that."

Lizzie giggles, but it sticks in her throat when, in the next moment, he's bent down to take her nipple in his mouth. He sucks, and she-

She thinks her previous question has been _obliterated. _

_/_

They take their time right up until they _don't._

It's desperate, and then it's languid, and then it's desperate again.

/

But there is a moment, between entirely shedding articles of clothing, when her hair is flinging back against the pillow where she knocks her head, and Red is between her thighs, kissing, _just _kissing, and she touches his bare shoulder, and she-

Lizzie freezes, because she forgets.

She forgets, and then she feels the rough texture, and she-

Red stops, too. "You okay?"

"I'm," Lizzie struggles for words. "I'm fine, it's just. Can I-

Red's erection bobs when he sits back, and everything is starting to smell of musk when they haven't even really started yet, and Lizzie's curtain of mahogany sways when she crawls forward, shifts until she's behind him. Close enough to press her mouth against the scar tissue. She touches it tenderly. "Does it hurt?" she asks, voice half there.

"From time to time," he admits, light, like it's no big deal that he's endured this kind of pain, and-

Lizzie kisses the scars that are the embodiment of his undying commitment to her. Red rumbles, almost purrs, digs his fingers into the sheets at the sensation. But he can feel Lizzie's tears drip onto the numbed skin, phantom nerve endings, can feel Lizzie moving her mouth, and-

"Thank you," she tells him, and Red squeezes his eyes shut. "Thank you."

_For saving my life. _

_For saving yourself._

_For surviving. _

_For being. _

_/_

He runs his mouth across her collarbone.

"Saving you is one of the best decisions of my life, Elizabeth."

/

There's an awkward moment when it's too much.

Lizzie slaps her hand against the head board behind her and then bites down on her lip til it bleeds, and Red comes to a halt inside her, tries to pull out, but-

"No, no, no," she hurries, gritting the words through the pain, through the delicious stretch. "It's good, it's okay-

"Lizzie, I'm hurting you," Red says tersely, muscles in his arms contracting to keep his body weight centered, as to deny his instinct to thrust.

"No," she says, sharp and clear. Lizzie leans up and nips his neck as to drive home her point. He winces at her teeth on his skin. "It's been a while," she wavers, eyebrows furrowing. "And Ray- Ray, you're bigger than," Lizzie gulps. "Bigger than what I'm used to."

Red's nostrils flare, and he kisses her, kisses away the distant memories of Tom Keen, of any lover in between. This is their moment, and she tastes so sweet on his tongue, and God, she's feminine and _tight, _and-

Lizzie relaxes enough that he slides deeper without any incentive.

They both cry out at the sensation, Lizzie's back arching. Her lips form an o, pink and pretty. And just like that, the awkward moment is gone.

/

He loves the sound of her moans, all breathy and high.

The rain batters against the roof and he entwines his fingers with her own, and he knows to change the angle of his hips upwards, knows that positioning a pillow beneath her lower back before it all began was more premeditated than she would have ever thought, and when the tick of the clock decides to cease, and it's all bursts of color beneath fluttering eyelids, and she's crying out. When he holds back, waits until she's finished before giving her another release, when it's all said and done and he finally shudders and throbs within her, finally rests his forehead against her breast and groans, long and loud-

It's something.

It's really something.

/

"The sun will come out tomorrow," she sings, off key, batting her eyelashes at him. Night has fallen and the rain she's just checked the weather on her phone, and they lie there, blankets and sweat drying on skin. Their intermingled scents fill the air, a trace of smoke lingering.

"If you're orphan Annie, then does that make me Daddy Warbucks?" he chortles, puffing his cigar. She rolls her eyes at his antics, playing along.

"You did save me from a horrific living situation," she agrees, half mortified. "Is Dembe the Grace in your life?"

He muffles his laughter into her neck.

Then, distantly, he acknowledges, "Zoe loved that movie. We must have gone to the theatre three or four times to see it. Just once wasn't enough. She had to be able to sing along with the actors."

Lizzie takes that in, licking at her still tender lip. Her heart becomes heavy, in the space of a few moments. Slowly, she turns to look at him, leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek. Comforting.

"You were a good father, Red," she tells him.

"I tried to be," he goes, lowering his octave. Then, he clears his throat. "Do you ever wonder what would have happened if the adoption had gone through? If you hadn't taken my advice?"

Lizzie flinches away, face contorting like she's bit down on something sour. "I try not to," she admits. "Children just aren't for me, I guess."

"I meant what I said, Lizzie," he murmurs, sincere. "One day you'll make a fantastic mother. Just not that baby, with _that _man."

There's an air there, something like detachment. Lizzie perks up, gets her head on straight. "Are you interested in being a father again?"

And Red stops himself, because he _was_ separating it. He wasn't even thinking in terms of-

And Lizzie wilts, a little.

He tries to make up for it, but the uncertainty is still there. "I don't know," Red says cautiously, heading. "I lost Zoe and her mother so violently, Elizabeth. It would hard to wrap my head around."

"I'm barren."

It's a blunt statement, poised upon his jawline. They're so wrapped up in one another, and the cigar has been stubbed out. Red runs his hands along her naked back, along the smooth, warm skin. At the words, lost in his own pondering of fatherhood, his movements come to an abrupt stop, and then continue. "So the lack of protection won't be an issue?" he prompts.

Lizzie grows very sad, aching in the pit of her stomach. It's for the best, so it's a weird kind of melancholy. It's strange, really.

"No," she answers. "No, it won't."

He runs a hand over her head of wavy locks. Comforting.

/


End file.
